Dealing with Diaspora Dissent in Different Domains

A Conceptual Framework of Authoritarian Regimes’
Foreign Social Media Strategies

Allison Koh

ipb annual conference
Freie Universität Berlin
October 6, 2023

To set the stage… [As many of you are probably already aware…] In September of last year, the killing of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman in Iran sparked anti-government protests that spread globally. Over the past few months, digital media played a massive role in documenting evidence of state repression within Iran’s borders and the transnational coordination of protests—which has included solidarity protests organized by Iranian diaspora activists such as the one in Berlin captured in this image in the middle, and art like the mural shown here on the right. The Iranian diaspora’s solidarity efforts were not just restricted to coordination of offline protests- they were also successful in spreading awareness through online campaigns on international platforms that went viral. One of the more viral campaigns involved women around the world—such as the journalist Masih Alinejad shown here on the left—cutting pieces of their hair in solidarity with Iranian protesters.

Overview

Areas of Inquiry

Why do diasporas pose a unique threat to governments engaging in repression?

What resources are available for states to control social media activity?

How do states address diaspora dissent on foreign social media?

Observable Implications

What data can we use in this research area?

What challenges will researchers face in this area?

Diasporas as Regime Threats

What is so threatening about dissent in diasporas?

“Horizontal” networks at home 🏡
(Brinkerhoff 2009; Alonso and Oiarzabal 2010; Bernal 2020)

“Vertical” networks abroad 🌏
(Keck and Sikkink 1999; Michaelsen 2018; Esberg and Siegel 2020)

Diasporas as Regime Threats

Why would states want to limit diaspora dissent?

Regime survival¹

Fragment cross-border connections
Discourage mobilization of potential challengers

External image management²

Evade sanctions
Promote favorable foreign policy outcomes

So why do states care about their international reputation, and why would they be incentivized to limit diaspora dissent?

There are two broad categories that encompass their many motivations for silencing diaspora dissent.

One of the foremost concerns is regime survival. By specifically targeting the diaspora, states fragment cross-border connections that might increase anti-regime mobilization. States can also benefit from discouraging mobilization of potential challengers at home and abroad if they can take on the challenge of extraterritorially silencing diaspora regime critics.

Beyond regime survival, states are also invested in external image management. As noted in the naming and shaming literature, for instance, states are interested in avoiding negative impacts on their international reputation because evidence of domestic repression or human rights abuses could result in sanctions from other states. They could also leverage a more positive international reputation to promote favorable foreign policy outcomes.

Affordances of Social Media for State Repression

What do we know? Where are the gaps?

At Home 🏡

Abroad 🌍

Domestic Platforms

Direct control over platform policies
(King, Pan, and Roberts 2013; Stockmann 2013)

States + proxies disrupt information flows
(King, Pan, and Roberts 2017; Roberts 2018)

State agents contact/surveil regime threats (Dalmasso et al. 2018; Schenkkan and Linzer 2021)

Coercion-by-proxy of family/friends at home (F. Adamson and Tsourapas 2020; Moss, Michaelsen, and Kennedy 2022)

Foreign Platforms

State-aligned trolling/harassment
(Nyst and Monaco 2018; Posetti et al. 2021)

Content blocking, platform use restrictions
(Pan 2017)

State + proxies frame repressive actions

Targeted disinformation and threats

➡️ No provision over “image management”

So, given what we know about diasporas as a threat and states’ motivations for using digital technologies to control the narrative beyond their borders, what do we know about states’ capacity to control the circulation of information that tarnishes their reputation on social media? The burgeoning literature on digital repression and state information control practices highlight how states go about using social media to curtail the public sphere in their favor.

[AT HOME/DOMESTIC: MOSTLY CHINA RESEARCHERS] Within their borders, states have more direct provision over the control of information flows on social media. For domestic platforms, states more or less have a monopoly on control over platform policies. Or for states that do not have direct provision over platform policies, they can easily intervene on suppressing certain topics if they pose a threat to the regime. We are more likely to see this form of control in high-capacity states, since they have more resources to regulate a social media market that involves domestically based platforms. Much of the prominent empirical work done in this area has focused on China, which is the one of very few countries with a social media market dominated by domestic platforms. (1) The seminal work that uses computational methods to identify the motivations of governments for censorship was conducted by King Pan and Roberts, who identified that the Chinese government censors domestic platforms on the basis of collective action potential, and not necessarily on the political nature of a post. Danie Stockmann at the institutional level highlights how the commercialization of state-owned media provides the government with more resources to maintain regime stability. (2) Pro-government actors, which include those hired by the state and genuine regime loyalists, also manipulate information

[ABROAD/DOMESTIC: MOSTLY (D)TR RESEARCH] Case studies on social media and digital transnational repression predominantly highlight how states and their proxies use domestic platforms to attack diaspora regime critics. The tactics cited range from hacking to surveillance, to directly contacting them with

States still have a pretty tight grasp on the provision of content on platforms that are headquartered outside of their jurisdiction. One of the most common tactics cited in this category is content blocking, or specifically limiting content that pertains to topics that either go against state policies or in some other way threaten the state. High-capacity states can also ban or restrict foreign platform use altogether. China is of course the first state that comes to mind when it comes to using this tactic, but other states are moving in this direction as well. Iran specifically over the last few months has proposed policies that would restrict access to foreign platforms as well.

However, state strategies for information control on foreign platforms abroad has remained largely ignored in the realm of state repression. One of the main contributions of my dissertation research is to investigate how foreign platforms might be used abroad. While related empirical work is ongoing, I propose that states and their proxies can manipulate information on foreign platforms abroad to achieve the aims of justifying or positively framing repressive actions in addition to producing targeted disinformation to threaten and discredit diaspora dissidents.

I argue that states have to be more creative when using foreign platforms abroad for repression because, unlike the other three categories shown here, states have no direct provision on “image management” in this area.

Observable Implications

What data can we use in this research area?

Expert-curated Datasets on Transnational Repression¹

Global: Authoritarian Actions Abroad Database, Freedom House
Regional: Central Asian Political Exiles, China’s Transnational Repression of Uyghurs

Social Media Data

Application Programming Interfaces: Automated data retrieval based on website protocols
Scrapers: For web data that doesn’t have an available API

Observable Implications

What challenges will researchers face in this area?

Limitations

More information from democracies ➡️ difficult to compare across host state regime type
Information on political exiles may not be applicable to all diaspora
The “Attribution Problem”: Difficulty linking social media data to pro-government actors

Ethical Considerations

⚠️ Don’t create an instruction manual for dictators!
Legal/ethical considerations for collecting social media in the “post-API age” (Freelon 2018)

Conclusion

Why should we care about state strategies for digital diasporas?

Areas of Inquiry: Digital Diasporas and Transnational Repression

Diasporas can credibly impose reputational and economic costs on their home countries.
Foreign social media offer states a low-cost option for global information control.
Account for pro-government actor types and diaspora dissenters’ mobilization potential.

Observable Implications

We can link data on transnational repression to social media/digital traces.
May need to compromise scope conditions with human subjects research on social media.

Thank you!

koh@hertie-school.org

https://allisonkoh.github.io/

🟦 @allisonwkoh

References

Adamson, Fiona B., and Madeleine Demetriou. 2007. “Remapping the Boundaries of ‘State’ and ‘National Identity’: Incorporating Diasporas into IR Theorizing.” European Journal of International Relations 13 (4): 489–526. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354066107083145.

Adamson, Fiona, and Gerasimos Tsourapas. 2020. “At Home and Abroad: Coercion-by-Proxy as a Tool of Transnational Repression.”

Alonso, Andoni, and Pedro Oiarzabal. 2010. Diasporas in the New Media Age: Identity, Politics, and Community. University of Nevada Press.

Bernal, Victoria. 2020. “African Digital Diasporas: Technologies, Tactics, and Trends: Introduction.” African Diaspora 12 (1-2): 1–10.

Brinkerhoff, Jennifer M. 2009. Digital Diasporas: Identity and Transnational Engagement. Cambridge University Press.

Dalmasso, Emanuela, Adele Del Sordi, Marlies Glasius, Nicole Hirt, Marcus Michaelsen, Abdulkader S. Mohammad, and Dana Moss. 2018. “Intervention: Extraterritorial Authoritarian Power.” Political Geography 64 (May): 95–104. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2017.07.003.

Dukalskis, Alexander. 2021. Making the World Safe for Dictatorship. Oxford University Press.

Dukalskis, Alexander, Saipira Furstenberg, Yana Gorokhovskaia, John Heathershaw, Edward Lemon, and Nate Schenkkan. 2022. “Transnational Repression: Data Advances, Comparisons, and Challenges.” Political Research Exchange 4 (1): 2104651. https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2022.2104651.

Esberg, Jane. 2021. “Anticipating Dissent: The Repression of Politicians in Pinochet’s Chile.” The Journal of Politics 83 (2): 689–705. https://doi.org/10.1086/710086.

Esberg, Jane, and Alexandra Siegel. 2020. “How Exile Shapes Online Opposition: Evidence from Venezuela.”

Freelon, Deen. 2018. “Computational Research in the Post-API Age.” Political Communication 35 (4): 665–68.

Heathershaw, J., and S. Furstenberg. 2019. “Central Asian Political Exiles Database (CAPE).” https://excas.net/projects/political-exiles/.

Holbig, Heike. 2011. “International Dimensions of Legitimacy: Reflections on Western Theories and the Chinese Experience.” Journal of Chinese Political Science 16: 161–81.

Keck, Margaret E., and Kathryn Sikkink. 1999. “Transnational Advocacy Networks in International and Regional Politics.” International Social Science Journal 51 (159): 89–101. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2451.00179.

King, Gary, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts. 2013. “How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression.” American Political Science Review 107 (2): 326–43. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055413000014.

———. 2017. “How the Chinese Government Fabricates Social Media Posts for Strategic Distraction, Not Engaged Argument.” American Political Science Review 111 (3): 484–501. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055417000144.

Krcmaric, Daniel. 2019. “Information, Secrecy, and Civilian Targeting.” International Studies Quarterly 63 (2): 322–33. https://doi.org/10.1093/isq/sqz014.

Lemon, Edward, Bradley Jardine, and Natalie Hall. 2022. “Globalizing Minority Persecution: China’s Transnational Repression of the Uyghurs.” Globalizations, 1–17.

Michaelsen, Marcus. 2018. “Exit and Voice in a Digital Age: Iran’s Exiled Activists and the Authoritarian State.” Globalizations 15 (2): 248–64.

Moss, Dana M., Marcus Michaelsen, and Gillian Kennedy. 2022. “Going After the Family: Transnational Repression and the Proxy Punishment of Middle Eastern Diasporas.” Global Networks 22 (4): 735–51.

Nyst, Carly, and Nick Monaco. 2018. “State-Sponsored Trolling: How Governments Are Deploying Disinformation as Part of Broader Digital Harassment Campaigns.” Institute for the Future.

Pan, Jennifer. 2017. “How Market Dynamics of Domestic and Foreign Social Media Firms Shape Strategies of Internet Censorship.” Problems of Post-Communism 64 (3-4): 167–88.

Posetti, Julie, Nabeelah Shabbir, Diana Maynard, Kalina Bontcheva, and Nermine Aboulez. 2021. “The Chilling: Global Trends in Online Violence Against Women Journalists.” UNESCO, April.

Roberts, Margaret E. 2018. Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall. Princeton University Press.

Schenkkan, Nate, and Isabel Linzer. 2021. “Out of Sight, Not Out of Reach: The Global Scale and Scope of Transnational Repression.” Freedom House (8 February 2021), Available at:{https://Freedomhouse. Org/Report/Transnational-Repression} Accessed 7.

Stockmann, Daniela. 2013. Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China. Cambridge University Press.

Wright, Thomas C., and Rody Oñate Zúniga. 2007. “Chilean Political Exile.” Latin American Perspectives 34 (4): 31–49.

Dealing with Diaspora Dissent in Different Domains

A Conceptual Framework of Authoritarian Regimes’Foreign Social Media Strategies

Allison Koh

Overview

Areas of Inquiry

Observable Implications

Diasporas as Regime Threats

What is so threatening about dissent in diasporas?

Diasporas as Regime Threats

Why would states want to limit diaspora dissent?

Regime survival1

External image management2

Affordances of Social Media for State Repression

What do we know? Where are the gaps?

Affordances of Social Media for State Repression

Key Definitions 🔎📕

Transnational Repression

Diaspora

Addressing Diaspora Dissent on Foreign Social Media

Actors Involved

Which diaspora dissidents are targeted?

Who is behind the keyboard?

Addressing Diaspora Dissent on Foreign Social Media

A Typology of State Strategies

Pro-Government Actor Type

Mobilizing Capacity

Observable Implications

What data can we use in this research area?

Expert-curated Datasets on Transnational Repression1

Social Media Data

Observable Implications

What challenges will researchers face in this area?

Limitations

Ethical Considerations

Conclusion

Why should we care about state strategies for digital diasporas?

Areas of Inquiry: Digital Diasporas and Transnational Repression

Observable Implications

Thank you!

References

A Conceptual Framework of Authoritarian Regimes’
Foreign Social Media Strategies

Regime survival¹

External image management²

Expert-curated Datasets on Transnational Repression¹